Using Glogster as an assessment tool

Peer assessing in this way using the commenting facility in blogs becomes a very effective way for students to assess each other. In addition, the teacher can also see immediately if there are any areas or topics which may require further teacher intervention, thus informing future lesson planning eacher intervention, thus informing future lesson planning

What is Glogster?

Glogster is an internet tool that allows users to create and share interactive posters composed of text, graphics, sound and videos, as in the example above. Glogster is a free tool but offers a premium service to teachers and schools, which is great for those who have concerns over privacy and security or would welcome the ability to generate, control and administer their students’ accounts.

Why use Glogster? The student’s perspective

Tools such as Glogster dovetail effortlessly with our students’ digital lifestyle. You may well remember fondly those fabled times without email and digital distractions when when every student was reputedly exemplary, but those who started secondary education in the past three years do not remember a world without social networking and internet interactivity. Our students are growing up in a multimedia world where they can communicate, learn and exercise their creativity online.

The ability to create products – tangible outcomes – that they can share with pride, using tools with which they are familiar, is undoubtedly a motivating factor for most students. However, it is not a magic bullet: using Glogster doesn’t guarantee students will do a good job. The best outcomes will only be achieved if both teacher and students assign the required level of importance and significance to the task.

Whenever students achieve poorly in their exercise books, we don’t blame the exercise books and decide to stop using them. Instead we tackle whatever problems led to such poor achievement in the first place and even apply sanctions if deemed necessary. The same principles should apply to using tools such as Glogster. The internet is not an excuse for poor teaching.

Why use Glogster? The teacher’s perspective

Every language teacher remembers the four skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking. As you can see, in the example above, there is evidence of all four skills being put to good use in the one piece of work. The student wrote a descriptive piece (writing) and recorded his own voice (speaking) so other students could read (reading) and listen to him and his chosen videos (listening).

Teachers can put together lessons that can be shared with pupils beyond the confines of the classroom in a variety of ways, but the real power of Glogster comes from getting your students to do the work, from allowing them to create their unique piece of work and from the peer assessing potential that can be exploited afterwards, once a class project has been completed.

And remember that you don’t necessarily have to do this project in the classroom. Because Glogster is an internet tool, it can be accessed from anywhere where there is an internet connection, so the completion of the project can easily be set for homework.

On to assessment then

We embed our glogs – that’s what these multimedia posters are called – in our languages blog. A blog is a social tool based on the principles that writers can easily update it and that readers can interact with the writer by leaving comments. However, students must be taught how to write good comments – years of schools’ refusal to engage with pupils using social media has meant that they have not learnt how to interact appropriately online. I believe it’s our job to teach them.

We use the two starts and a wish method, by which they are required to leave a comment outlining two things another student has done well and another thing she could improve. And we always model the comments, that is to say, we show them what good and bad comments look like so that they know within which parameters to operate. Dedicating some time to teaching students to write good, meaningful comments is essential if we are to establish purposeful learning conversations.

An advantage of using tools such as Glogster regularly is that you can eventually bypass this last step. My classes and I have been using Glogster since 2008, so my students remain familiar with the process and our high expectations from one year to the next.

Peer assessing in this way, using the commenting facility in blogs, becomes a very effective way for students to assess each other. In addition, the teacher can also see immediately if there are any areas or topics which may require further teacher intervention, thus informing future lesson planning and completing an assessment loop that was initiated by the setting of the task.

The potential of the internet for this kind of learning through social interaction is often overlooked and underrated. I hope this post goes a little way to demonstrating that harnessing social media in this way is actually both desirable and advantageous.

Please do not hesitate to share your opinion and your experiences of using Glogter or similar tools in the classroom. Your contribution is always welcome and very much appreciated.

José is Assistant Principal at Surbiton High School and a Fellow of the RSA and Naace. He is interested in improving education and the way technology can be used to enhance and transform teaching and learning.
José has been curating Box of Tricks since 2007 and holds a MA in ICT and Education.

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Sr. Picardo- when you do use tools like as homework as mentioned about, how do you ensure that your students do not use translators? I have this issue with any at home writing assignment. It used to be that it was really easy to tell if a student used a translator, but now with translators getting smarter and smarter and especially with upper level classes (who should know the grammar, so above level usage is not a give-away) I am not sure what to do.

http://www.josepicardo.com José Picardo

Hi Kelly,

Sorry to take so long in replying to your comment, but I’ve been really busy getting ready for the beginning of term. The problem of students using online translators is one I am very familiar with. However, I still find it fairly easy to spot translator-transgressors – it’s always suspicious when less able/more reluctant students come up with word-perfect Spanish!

In any case, I think that in their own context translators are really useful and that the trick is to educate the students in what is appropriate/inappropriate use so that they avoid these websites – do so giving them good reasons – in favour of online dictionaries such as Wordreference.com when writing for you.

Easier said than done, I hear you say. What I ensure I do the is to back up this with applying my school’s sanctions policy in relation to cheating. I tell my students very clearly that I view the use of translators as cheating and that I will deal with it accordingly.

Below is more advice from teachers who joined in from Twitter when I posted a link to your query:

@josepicardo My Foundation students agree to NOT use them – too easy to tell and they don’t know what it means anyway.— Rachel Delaney (@racheldelaney65) agosto 28, 2012

I hope that helps.

PS Don’t blame the technology. Students have been tempted to cheat since, well, forever. It’s the inappropriate behaviour you need to deal with.